George Wood Jr. | Blot
Russ Wheelhouse inspects items a customer brought in to sell at his antiques shop on Main Street in Moscow.
A man strides into an antique shop armed with a rustic bayonet, a dull machete, a World War II jacket with a dusting of animal fur on it and a stack of eight ornate plates. The man’s son tags along after his father, but soon dawdles off to look at neat things around the shop.
“Before we get going on this, the cat hair is free,” said Joe Frye, a collector of historic military gear.
Russ Wheelhouse sits at the counter of his downtown Moscow shop, unfazed and engaged as he sips on a mimosa.
“This is good, so you’ve got an old USMC machete?” said Wheelhouse, a long-time antique dealer who is the owner of Antiques by Russ located on Main Street.
The antiques for sale in front of the owner are the center of his attention. As an antique dealer, Wheelhouse said his favorite item in the shop is usually his latest buy.
“You keep buying things every day. I spend a lot of time at auctions and the phone rings all the time, and people bring things through the door … I have got a reputation as a good buyer,” Wheelhouse said.
On that Saturday afternoon, his favorite items were a 100-pound anvil and a crosscut saw laying outside of the shop. Both items were bought that morning. However, with Frye’s help, this could easily change.
Wheelhouse carefully caresses the items, occasionally dropping a nod of approval, or asking Frye to clarify an item’s background. Frye waits in anticipation, eyeballing an old military razor kit he hopes to leave with.
The mood warms up and the two settle on a deal. Frye takes away the razor kit, his plates and the promise of getting cut a deal in the future, while Wheelhouse acquires some military grade antiques. With business concluded, the two carry on like old friends.
“I don’t care if you buy anything, but you better have fun,” Wheelhouse said. “You’ll be back, or you’ll tell someone else about how neat this shop is, and then they’ll come back.”
Wheelhouse said his passion for antiques was first kindled around 6 years old, when his grandfather hoisted him up onto the loft of a rickety homestead on his family’s land in Eastern Klickitat County, Washington.
“He said, ‘Now make sure you step on the rafters and don’t fall through the ceiling, but see if there’s anything up there and hand it down to me,'” Wheelhouse said. “There was all this old photographic equipment and a big wooden shoebox full of straight razors.”
After studying broadcast media in school, Wheelhouse was unable to find work and decided to become an antique dealer full time at 28 years old.
Wheelhouse said he got his start by buying items at auctions to sell at yard sales for a quick buck. Eventually, he opened his first antique shop in Pullman in 1985 and would stay there for three years. He reopened the business in 1990 in Corvallis, Oregon, before moving to Uniontown, Washington. He would become a certified antique appraiser in 1999.
In October 2010, Wheelhouse set up shop in Moscow.
George Wood Jr. | Blot
“When I moved from Uniontown to here, it took me 25 days in a row without a day off to move,” Wheelhouse said. “The packing and unpacking was phenomenal. I don’t ever want to move again.”
The first thing required of any antique dealer is a broad knowledge of history, Wheelhouse said. He said he started by learning as much as possible about specific eras of history and continued to learn throughout the years.
“If you run an antique shop, you are in a museum where everything happens to be for sale,” Wheelhouse said. “I want everything to be visible. I want them to be able to see not only the item, but the price. And I want the item to be surrounded by other things of its type so if that’s your interest, they are seen right away.”
Wheelhouse said he retains customer interest by setting the mood with a playlist of different jazz and soul tunes. His shop also has interactive areas where customers can dig through drawers of buttons, scarves and trinkets.
Not to mention, Wheelhouse has marble dragons guarding the front counter.
“(The Pixiu) are protectors. They protect the owner’s wealth and well-being, and they like offerings of silver — that’s why the coins are on there,” he said. “They’re good luck too, pat them on the head, they like that. Every day I light a little incense on them to charge them up.”